Alt-J Lead 2014 Falls Music & Arts Festival Announcement

The annual Falls Music & Arts Festival just made its ticket ballot one of the must-enter draws of the year with this morning’s official announcement of its epic first batch from its 2014 line-up, to be headlined by British indie darlings Alt-J alongside the likes of remix master SBTRKT and ascendant Aussie Vance Joy.

The An Awesome Wave creators stand at the cusp of dropping their newest full-length release, This Is All Yours – due out in September – and have well and truly endeared themselves to antipodean audiences in the past few years through their world-renowned live shows and certified hits such as Breezeblocks, Tessellate and Something Good, with new tracks Hunger Of The Pine and Left Hand Free doing much to maintain that momentum as the band traverses the United States and UK on their way through to Falls this December.

A live set from SBTRKT is definitely something worth salivating over – though best-known for his reworks of tunes from Radiohead, M.I.A, Basement Jaxx and Mark Ronson, to name a few, his in-flesh recreations of tracks such as Wildfire (featuring Little Dragon) and Nervous (featuring Jessie Ware) are where the renowned performer and producer truly shine, so it’d be wise to make the most of the opportunities Falls is presenting to you this year and catch him while you can.

Vance Joy continues to push past the Riptide, er, riptide by releasing consistently strong songs in its wake that more than demonstrate his capability and diversity of skills as a performer and composer. Latest effort First Time follows up Mess Is Mine as another testament to the swiftly developing artist’s depth and sustainability, and by the time he hits Falls at the end of the year, we’ll be seeing a transformatively more confident and assured musician than when we first crossed paths with the uke-toting troubadour.

The remainder of the line-up is no slouch to look at, either, with the likes of the xx beatmaker Jamie XX,  festival-veteran indie rock outfit Cold War Kids, national treasures The Presets, elder statesmen John Butler Trio, Norwegian duo Röyksopp & Robyn, Atlanta “flower punk” group The Black Lips, Aussie rock heroes Spiderbait, the too-cool-to-touch Temper Trap, Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$, German indie-poppers Milky Chance, meteorically upward-bound Brit George Ezra, San Franciscan visual artist and muso Tycho, Sydney buzz act DMA’s, and rising chanteuse Tkay Maidza all snaring a spot on the bill, as well as Todd Terje, Sticky Fingers, Jagwar Ma, one-man army The Kite String Tangle and exeunting local larrikins Bluejuice, alongside many others.

The Boogie Nights dance-party contingent is back for another year, as well, with Alison Wonderland, Badbadnotgood, Client Liaison and Salt N Pepa all on-board to bring a rambunctious evening of fancily dressed abandon to Lorne (December 28), Marion Bay (December 29) and Byron (December 31). See the event website for more.

The ticket ballot for the 2014 Falls Music & Arts Festival is now open, and will remain so until Monday, August 25. Most tickets to the event are allocated to sales through the ballot process, though anyone who misses out will have a second shot at a small allocation of passes for general release from 9am on Wednesday, September 3.

The Falls Music & Arts Festival will be held from December 28, 2014, to January 1, 2015 in Lorne, Victoria; December 29, 2014, to January 1, 2015, in Marion Bay, Tasmania (all ages); and Decmber 30, 2014, to January 3, 2015, in Byron Bay, NSW.

For more information about the festival, see our dedicated Falls page or check The Music App.